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Downtown Brooklyn: A New City Over a Century-old Transit Hub

In 2001, then Mayor Bloomberg called for a task force to assess what could be done to enliven and improve Downtown Brooklyn. The surrounding Brownstone neighborhoods were thriving but their vitality never seemed to spill over into the areas around Borough Hall, the courts, the Brooklyn Academy of Music or the retail district around Fulton Street. Above and below ground, a heaving transit hub mostly carried people through the downtown area to other destinations. Parking lots were the area’s most remarkable feature.

Then came the rezoning and all bets were off. Since 2004, the area has blossomed into one of the most sought-after locations for tech companies, small creative businesses and back-office operations for large Manhattan companies, and includes 50 arts organizations and 3,800 hotel rooms. Residential towers like City Point or AVA DoBro have transformed the landscape from that of low-rises with a single tall building — the 1875 Williamsburg Savings Bank — to something that looks more like a dense metropolis.

According to Adam Greene, a director of Forest City Ratner, the extraordinary changes in the area would not have happened without the advantage of the existing transportation hub. “It all begins and ends with transit,” said Greene, whose company is currently building Pacific Park Brooklyn, a mixed-used residential and retail complex on 22 acres near the Barclays Center.

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One could argue that a world-class venue like the Barclays Center would not have been possible were it not, much like Madison Square Garden, linked by public transportation to all five boroughs and suburban Long Island. The area is served by no fewer than 13 subway lines, 15 MTA buses, the LIRR and the East River Ferry. It is also served by both the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, and roadways like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Because of the area’s convenient proximity to Manhattan and the appeal of the lifestyle of brownstone Brooklyn, the Downtown population has soared to 22,000 and will hit 56,000 by 2025, according to the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Currently, there are 6,758 residential units, with 6,000 more under construction and 7,000 in the pipeline.

There are approximately 17 million square feet of office space. It has been developing at a slower pace than residential construction but there has been a dramatic turnaround in retail offerings. The three City Point residential towers sit atop a shiny new mall with an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Century 21 and DeKalb Market Hall, a vast food court with 40 diverse food stalls to rival anything Manhattan can offer. DoBro, as it’s called for short, also has a Trader Joe’s, Shake Shack, Target and Macy’s.

Construction in Downtown Brooklyn continues apace, in a sense moving backwards toward the future, says Paul Travis, managing partner, Washington Square Partners, developers of City Point. “We are returning to what Brooklyn was originally, a center for everything in Brooklyn, a downtown that made it a great place in the 1920s,” he said. “We are coming full circle.”